cost”?

COMMUNICATIONS Why Not Switch to "Benefit/Cost"? The well-known term " c o s t / b e n e f i t " has dominated much of American management thought for the past sixty years. America has indeed served as a control model;, controllers, with their budgets, standards, cost accounting and cost/benefit studies, have predominated over more traditional methods of managerial operations. The recent severe recession has proved the effectiveness of the model, and American business has done an excellent job of controlling costs and earning profits. The concept of cost/benefit has worked well in practice. However, this country's survival may well be based on technology, research a n d development, strategic planning, and management by objectives. As we near the year 2000, our strength may be based on our ability to compete in world markets with new products, methods and managerial systems. The conceptualization, development and implementation of needed products and services will require a more creative and forward-looking managerial thought process. Long-range planning, systems of managing by objectives, unique and imaginative key success factors, and benefit cost studies will have to be emphasized. Management must maintain its effectiveness and efficiency in the traditional fields of production operations, marketing and finance, in order to permit the next great functional differentiation to o c c u r ~ t h a t of research and development. Management thought that is geared to producing the needed systems for the future can best be attained through managing by objectives at costs we can afford. Perhaps we would hasten our attainment of the objectives by switching the words in the term " c o s t / b e n e f i t " to make a new term, "benefit/cost." The switch may provide the insights and directions necessary to produce some of the world's n e e d s goods and services-more efficiently. What could be more socially responsible? Edmond H. Curcuru

University o f Connecticut Stamford, Connecticut 06903

Improving Management Communications To the editor: I am pleased with the response to my article, " L o o k It Up--Or Can You?: A Proposal for a Management Communications I n d e x " [April 1977, pp. 61-68]. Two responses merit further explanation, since they

involve the relevance of several major services to my proposal. Please note that I did not say that those sources not mentioned were of no value; but rather, said that I did not find them to be of particular value in retrieving articles on "management communications" as defined and separated from theoretical and experimental communications subjects. I obviously did find Personnel Management Abstracts (PMA) to be useful, since I included it in the recommended list. As the PMA staff pointed out to me in their letter, they do cover 17 of the journals listed in my crossmatch chart, plus 43 others. The crossmatch chart is an abbreviation of my huge, handwritten master chart, and I apologize to PMA for my astigmatic error in transcribing their dots from my master chart to the abbreviated chart. The items that I found in PMA were not of the practical " h o w - t o " nature of those found in other publications, and I therefore labelled them: as "peripheral items." They did, however, contain some excellent information pertaining to interpersonal communications which are of particular interest to personnel professionals. Predicasts, Inc. wrote to remind me of their indexes and terminal system, which my article did not mention. I did consult their F & S Index, even though its introduction does not claim coverage of communications subjects, but I found that the F & S Index is not at all oriented toward the field of "management communications." It does appear to have very good coverage of market forecasting information. Since my research was not funded, I was unable to use their terminal system, but I believe 1 have made a fair assumption that all of their data bases have a marketing orientation. My study also excluded a number of other terminal and information systems that are available for a price. For two years I applied in many directions for funding. Evidently, billions of dollars are available for sophisticated research on rockets, nuclear weapons, and even the nocturnal mating habits of mongoloid tsetse flies; but not one cent is available for anything so prosaic as business and technical communications to benefit the average person in business. The responses to my article underscore the need for the proposed "Management Communications Index," and I fervently hope that all of those who have endorsed it will assist in doing something about it. James w. Hill

Ramblewood Road, R D # I Pennsylvania Furnace, PA 16865

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